The critiques of rap artists and other participants in hip-hop culture provide data for teachers and researchers to investigate the attitudes of US urban youth towards schooling. This study explores the complex relationships between hip-hop and science education by examining how rap lyrics project beliefs about schooling, the relevance of existing curriculum, and the intellectual capability of urban youth. These lyrics also provide a synopsis of this population's alienation from schooling and from science education in particular. By examining student discourses in two US high schools, this study shows how co-generative dialogues, and other classroom procedures derived from hip-hop culture, may be used to modify teaching and learning in science and to ameliorate urban students' alienation from schools. (Contains 18 notes.)